“Remember this the next time some back-water healer tries to trick you into ‘curing’ your old scars: there are certain wounds that can never be healed. A fresh cut, certainly, and a skilled practitioner might even regrow a whole limb if they get to you before you bleed out, but scars? No. Healing magic can only ever return your body to the state it remembers and, once natural processes are done and all that's left are scars, the flesh has long since forgotten what it once was.”
-Caitrìona Sginnearach, Artist of Flesh and wandering priestess of Anghenfil'hyfryd
Climbing a wall and entering through the window was easy; though it was high off the ground, the window itself was unlatched. The harder part came after. The scent of infection had only grown stronger as Valentina approached but, now that she was actually on the threshold of the room, everything was so much worse. It wasn’t that she was unfamiliar with death and all of its unpleasant add-ons —memories of past battles and a night three years prior still remained fresh in her mind— but everything about this room felt… more. Death wasn’t a clean thing, but the kind she was familiar with rarely lingered; this room, however, was steeped in it, bathed in the scents of someone on their deathbed for days. And there, in the centre of it all, lay the girl she was looking for.
The Archduchess’ eyes didn’t stray for a moment, locked onto the motionless body in the middle of the room. Even as she approached, she didn’t dare look away, something deep within her saying that she might disappear or worse the moment the girl left her gaze. It wasn’t until she knelt down beside her that Valentina was met with a wash of relief; Dahlia was breathing, though it was a weak and fragile thing. What filled Valentina then was complicated —a knot of worry, relief, anxiety, and rage— but all she knew was that, regardless of any underpinning thought, she needed to act immediately. She worried her lip, hands trembling and breath uneven as she went to begin removing the blankets covering the girl when a rustling came from behind her.
The vampiress pivoted, teeth bared and claws flexed as she hovered over the girl like a feral guard-dog, ready to rip and tear through anything that dared to approach or threaten her and already preparing to pounce on the intruder. What she was met with was a woman who looked remarkably like the one she was trying to protect; more mature, certainly, but other than a hand of added height and dark circles around sleepless golden eyes, she appeared nearly identical to Dahlia. The behaviour was wrong though. Even now Valentina remembered the girl’s reactions and way of emoting, unrefined and expressive and oh-so precious, but what she saw in this woman was…
“Oh come now, I know I startled you but there’s no need to look at me like that.” Sabrina remained seated, back against the wall and hands raised and empty. Yet despite the lack of hostility as well as the woman’s overt fatigue, something in the way she held herself —how she smiled, how she spoke— had the vampiress’ hackles raise all-the-same. “Really, you’re big and tough and have all the control here, I’m just a tired lady trying to help before you kill my daughter on accident.”
Valentina repressed a flinch, but she repressed the urge to lash out as well. Nothing about this situation was normal and if what she was saying was true… well, the Archduchess didn’t have so much pride that she wouldn’t listen. Still, she couldn’t get herself to relax and every part of her instincts were screaming that things were wrong. “Fine, go on then. You were going to help? Then help.”
The woman looked her up and down, eyes far too analyzing for Valentina’s taste but eventually she simply relaxed back to the floor again, apparently having been collapsed in a pile of blankets and pillows in her own corner prior to the vampiress’ arrival.
“You’re going to want to be careful with the girl’s blankets. And the wrappings. And everything, really. She’s hardly alive and is largely being held together by her wrappings and a prayer at this point. You go in too fast and you're going to tear open something important.”
The Archduchess leveled a long stare at the woman, eyes flicking over to a set of rags, medical tools, and medicines, before returning to Sabrina. “She’s in a state like this and she hasn’t even seen a fucking healer? Is this some kind of joke?”
“No, no jokes here I’m afraid. I don’t quite have the energy for them at the moment.”
“You’re a fucking noble family!” She snapped, all thoughts of stealth long since past, “I don’t give a shit that you’re poor! How the hell did things manage to get this bad in a week?”
Sabrina cocked an eyebrow, seeming to consider how much was even worth saying before shrugging with another sigh. “While I’d like to say that the barony lacks any real healers, that isn’t entirely true. They aren’t well trained and would have hardly helped, but there are a couple in town that could have at least made a slight difference. If not healing everything fully, then at least preventing my own treatments from enlarging the existing wounds.”
“Then—”
“No, listen. If they were allowed onto the estate and informed on the circumstances they would have moderately helped. Maybe even have bought us an extra week in hopes of getting a better healer, but Vincent —her father— would have never let that happen. Allowing news of this to spread out into the public… he wouldn’t have ever allowed it and if word got out against his wishes I promise you things would have only gotten worse, not better.” Her eyes glanced up, meeting Valentina’s own just as she was about to object, and there was a cold certainty in the Baroness that had her hold her tongue. “You can be angry. You can be livid and enraged and spit and throw a fucking fit but I did what was best and nothing you could say will change my stance on that. Now, are you going to actually help my daughter or are you just going to posture at me.”
There was a tension in Valentina that only grew and pulled tighter, but one glance to the girl she stood protectively over was enough to crystallise that mess of emotion into something meaningful. She got to her knees, never leaving her back to the Baroness, and began to let herself focus fully on Dahlia. There was so much adrenaline coursing through her —hands shaking and refusing to stay still— and it had no place in that moment. The vampiress centered herself, breathed, and imbued a hex within her own body; blood composition shifted, changed, and she felt the adrenaline leave, replaced with an unwavering focus. It was something she was more than used to doing, but it wouldn’t hurt to apply it to herself first, especially considering how she suspected that the same technique would need to be used on Dahlia next.
“You said that you’ve been taking care of her wounds…” She spoke as she gently pulled back the blankets, slowly revealing more and more of the girl’s mangled frame. “This is— I don’t understand how she’s even alive… Fuck it, I can worry about that later. You said that you’ve been treating her wounds so what do I need to work around and heal?”
The vampiress’ eyes were fixed firmly on Dahlia, on the wounds, bruises, stitches, and discoloration of late stage infection, but she could feel the Baroness’ eyes on her. “Your blood aspect… how well does it heal?”
“Well enough, now tell me—”
“No, I don’t want to hear ‘well enough,’ tell me what you can actually heal.”
Again Valentina felt the urge to just attack the woman but she grit her teeth and powered through. “I don’t have a healing schema but I can still manipulate blood near-perfectly. The infection… it’ll take time but I can fully remove it. I have less control over regeneration but I can stop internal or external bleeding and at least seal up existing wounds to keep her stable until I can get her to a proper healer.”
There was a pause then, but a moment later she could hear a sigh. “Alright then, it’s not perfect but it’ll do. I’m not sure how much you can help her lungs, but those need healing badly: if you can get the fluids out great but anything would help at this point. The broken bones need tending too, especially before the internal scarring settles. I set the larger bones but there are a lot of shattered bones and smaller breaks I couldn’t treat properly. Lastly, her gut is… well, you’ve already gotten the gist of it, it’s bad. I’ve been doing everything I could to slow the spread of the infection but… suffice it to say, there’s a limit on what I could do. I was carving away the worst of the rot but there’s only so much I can take away until I’m doing more damage than not.”
All while she spoke, Valentina’s focus never wavered, listening closely while looking Dahlia over. At the very least, the Baroness was being honest; she could see the mangled hands and feet, hear the shallow crackling breath, and had been smelling the gut wound for a while now. Seeing it was so much worse though. The vampiress was familiar with injuries. With pain and suffering and death. They weren’t a clean thing, but she was familiar with them.
When Valentina saw Dahlia’s abdomen, finally removed of bandages and cleared of all other obstruction, the vampiress saw red.
“Who did this to her?” It was quiet, yet the fury and malice were palpable, dripping from every word.
“Don’t you think it’d be better to focus on the girl first? You know, rather than whatever it is you’re doing now?”
Crimson eyes focussed back on Sabrina, taking her measure as the tired woman tried and failed to disguise her tension. Another glance at Dahlia though had her set the rage aside — not to forget it though, no, she would never allow that.
“I’ll begin working on her now; she doesn’t deserve any more delays.” She sneered as she heard the faint relaxed breath from the Baroness and cut that relief off fast: “Luckily, I’m a multitasker. Tell me. Now.”
As she began to embed blood hexes into Dahlia, she tweaked the composition of her own. She didn’t need anger. She needed focus. She needed a clear head and, gods be damned, if it meant she could safely treat Dahlia then she would sedate her own instinctual rage if need be. But she would listen. And when all the hexes were gone and the fury boiled back thicker than ever… well, she would deal with it then.
“Her father… I already mentioned him. I figure you can put things together easily enough.”
“I can. Elaborate anyway.”
The Baroness paused, seemingly mulling over how much to say but Valentina didn’t need to wait long. “It was in the carriage ride back from the debutante. Vincent was… furious might not even do it justice. After everything that happened in addition to how he already felt about the girl, he was out of his mind. The carriage ride here… it takes hours. He didn’t stop until we crossed the barony’s border and he didn’t even have the energy left to move.”
“And you watched.” Her voice was cold: a calculated anger rather than the burning one being restrained.
“And I watched.”
The admission was met with silence, the Archduchess’ focus shifted entirely to Dahlia as she wove her magic through the girl. Hexes began to sort through her blood, replacing what was needed and filtering out what was not. Sutures of blood began to take shape as well —fine, sharp, and delicate— stitching wounds only to bind them closed and clot quickly to seal them. A grain passed in silence as she focussed, and then a knuckle more. The process wasn’t fast, not fast enough at the very least, but progress was being made. That time, however, did allow the vampiress’ attention to gradually be more and more drawn to the sutures already in place. Non-magical and lacking though they may be, they were clean, precise, and practiced, and suddenly she started to feel all the more aware of the other woman’s presence in the room.
Two knuckles in silence had passed until she finally brought herself to ask: “What kind of noblewoman are you, to be so skilled in medicine?”
Her tone was quiet, clipped, and continued to be laced with both accusation and that cold rage from before, but the Archduchess refused to act recklessly. Not there, where Dahlia’s own condition was so fragile. For her part, Sabrina only took her measure, until slowly she pulled herself further upright, growing more alert in that moment than anything Valentina had seen previously. There was a shift to her — like her fatigued and frivolous nature was peeled away to reveal something far more hardened.
“I’m not sure if you’ve had much of a chance to do background research on our family yet, but it’s well enough known that the Liontárious are a patriarchal house; I married in due to my magic affinity and compatible bloodline. My own family is from a military background —curteni, separated by a generation— so you can imagine that some of those field skills were passed along.”
The Baroness paused, watching the vampiress as moments passed and tension only grew. Finally though, Valentina looked up and red eyes bore into Sabrina.
“I can feel your pulse. Just because you can lie convincingly doesn’t mean I won’t know. I’ve spared you thus far because you supplied aid and have information; do not take my inaction as inability. Now, try again.”
Valentina watched then, focus shifting away from the girl beneath her as all her senses focussed in on the other woman. For a while now, her instincts had been screaming to her that something was wrong but she couldn’t fully put a finger on what. Another glance at ambient mana once again showed exactly what she’d seen earlier: the Baroness was practically submerged in the stuff. The mana in the air around her was so dense that it would only be seen from a recently cast named spell or the repeated use of a lesser spell over the course of days. It was obvious that she was the source of the so-called curse, something that already garnered concern, but even that wasn’t enough to explain what made the woman so unnerving. All while she watched the Baroness, waiting for even the smallest sign she might grow hostile, Sabrina’s own posture had gone rigid. Her body and expressions stiffened as her eyes flitted about, glancing towards things that not even the vampiress could see until, finally, settling back on the Archduchess. A bit more looseness entered the Baroness’ body then, though it was a slight thing, and the smile that took over was brittle.
“If we’re settling in for this then I’m going to ask that you don’t try to kill me before I’ve spoken my piece."
The Archduchess could already feel her hackles being raised: “I’m not so sure you get to—”
“It’s for her safety,” Sabrina nodded at Dahlia, eyes again glancing about like a nervous tick.
Always looking about, always barely disguising a bundle of nerves, now even to the point of minor tremors as the Baroness’ unease only seemed to grow. What she said wasn’t a bluff however, at least as far as Valentina could tell. Reading someone’s pulse was far from a perfect method of discerning honestly, but usually the Archduchess could discern the more noteworthy signs and, unless Sabrina had grown better at lying very suddenly, she seemed to be telling the truth. That alone was enough for the vampiress to restrain herself from acting too hastily, instead nodding for her to continue.
“What I said earlier wasn’t… inaccurate. It’s the truth that I married into the Liontárious acting as the granddaughter to a curteni, though that relation was fabricated.”
Valentina cocked an eyebrow at that: “Courtiers granted title by serving particularly well in the war don’t possess inheritable titles and so their lineages are poorly traced… you’re saying you committed fraud under a different family’s name?”
The question was met with a nod, “The system in place for curteni is an excellent way for commoners to gain a title, but it’s a weak spot when it comes to documentation. I’ve found that it’s consistently the easiest way to slip into high-society without needing to forge a massive paper trail.” Seeing Valentina about to question her, the Baroness smiled. “I didn’t misspeak, I’ve done it before.”
Slowly, Valentina nodded as the implications began to pile up. “You’re older then — quite a bit older than you make yourself out to be. Your bloodline is probably far more purified than you let on as well, if it’s even the same as what you publicly advertise.” Adding on her medical skills and whatever spell she’d been maintaining for the last week and suddenly the Archduchess could feel herself tense, preparing to leap into combat at a moment’s notice. “What are you, some Dwergazish agent?”
Sabrina snorted —fucking snorted— and Valentina had to restrain herself from jumping on the woman as her body shook with suppressed laughter.
“Oh, you are cute, aren’t you. No, don’t look at me like that, I’m not suggesting you're weak or dumb, or anything like that, just…” the woman’s smile grew into something softer, tone almost wistful, “you’re young, Your Grace. Young and perhaps wearing your thoughts a little too openly. But no, to answer your earlier question, I’m not one of the Republic’s agents; I’ve long since left the war of the north behind me. Here, I think we’re past any attempts at deceit… why don’t I just come out and show you.”
It was as if all Sabrina’s tension left all at once as her body language grew languid, the Baroness’ nerves from earlier now gone and her grin wide. Mana, previously dense but gently floating, began to coalesce and condense about her, gathering in the air as well as on her own body and Valentina could only watch as the woman before her changed. Flecks of molten gold formed in the air, growing into dozens of peony-like buds, crafted layer upon layer by molten gold feathers and each blooming open to reveal the long slit pupil of floating, ever-watching, eyes. The woman’s own body changed little in shape yet her nails grew to long gold talons, metallic feathers burst through layers of skin and shred through cloth like razors and, where feathers did not grow and pale skin remained, golden slits cracked open and revealed more eyes underneath. She was beautiful, horrific, unnatural, and yet still all too human to just be some bestial bloodline. And then the wings grew: six of them, bursting from the woman's back as if formed from a geyser of molten gold. The last part that formed was like a floating diadem, radiant and encrusted with constantly flitting eyes where jewels ought to be, and hovered above her platinum hair like a halo.
No, Valentina gradually realised, the pit in her stomach growing with each passing wick. It wasn’t like anything — it simply was. A halo, floating above this terrifying woman of six wings…
Sabrina’s eyes opened, each and every one of them, seven on face alone and at least a hundred more elsewhere, and with them she smiled wide with far too many teeth. “Tell me, Your Grace, when was the last time you’ve heard tales of the seraphim?”